The Issue Of Mental Health

By: Scotch Q. Ennis

The term mental health is thrown around a lot -- this has especially been true during the few decades previous -- but mental health's complete meaning is often misunderstood. Casual discussion of mental health typically focuses on substantial mental disorders: schizophrenia illness, bipolar disease, sociopathic behavior, Alzheimer's, and other conditions. But what's excluded in conversations like this is the reality that mental health factors into everyone's life: all of us.

Thinking on mental health typically focuses on disorder. Someone who has a condition is psychologically unwell; being free of a condition makes one mentally well. This reasoning is problematic in different ways. Firstly, there are many people who do, in fact, have mental health disease go without being diagnosed. The world is full of people with undiagnosed mental conditions.

Problem number two is that the sole measure of mental health isn't just the absence of disorder. Mental health is just as much about having as not having.

To have optimal mental wellness means successfully coping with life difficulties; having healthy and productive social interactions with friends and family; having stable and functional relationships with informal acquaintances, such as co-workers; and generally being able to acclimate to society at large. These characteristics can absolutely be lacking in persons without apparent psychological or emotional illness.

In the event that one does lack these coping and social interaction capabilities, would they be considered mentally ill? Very unlikely under current definitions. But perhaps current definitions should be changed. An argument could be made that the lack of coping or interaction skills does, in fact, indicate mental illness, particularly when acting out, or the use of drugs or alcohol, is a response to poor coping. Habitually angry or addicted people don't typically fall under the label of mentally ill. Were this to change, large numbers of people might be encouraged to get some form of mental health care.

The counter to opening up definitions of mental illness to include typical dysfunctions, and encouraging more mental health treatment in the process, is that it would be overkill, would be intrusive, would be comparable to medicating large segments of the population at large. But is this really true? Mental health doesn't have to be oppressive or medicating. This isn't some sort of suggestion that pharmaceuticals should be dispensed in greater quantities than they already are.

What mental health should -- should -- encourage is coping technique, not the alteration of one's reality. Going about it this way -- keep the reality, alter the inappropriate coping mechanisms -- needn't involve any sort of medication cycle whatsoever. Mental health treatment history is extensive, and only fairly recently has it involved treatment with medication. Treating psychological function does not require the usage of pharmaceuticals, and that reality needs to be emphasized.

Article Source: http://appliedhealtharticles.com

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